Clouds on Neptune have almost disappeared, a rare event in the past thirty years of observations. Pictures taken from 1994 to 2022, both from Maunakea on Hawaiʻi Island through the W. M. Keck Observatory and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, show that only the south pole retains some clouds.
The findings, shared in the Icarus journal, also suggest a surprising link between Neptune's vanishing clouds and its solar cycle. Despite being the farthest major planet from the sun and getting only a tiny fraction of Earth's sunlight (1/900th), the changes in the solar cycle seem to impact Neptune's clouds.
Scientists from the University of California (UC) Berkeley noticed that the usual collection of clouds around Neptune's middle area began to diminish in 2019.
"I was surprised by how quickly clouds disappeared on Neptune," said Imke de Pater, senior author of the study and emeritus professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. "We essentially saw cloud activity drop within a few months."
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